The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced today that it will maintain the current target policy interest rate (the federal funds rate) of 5.5 percent. The committee has now held the rate at this level since the end of July 2023.
According to the FOMC’s press release:
The Committee does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent. In addition, the Committee will continue reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage‑backed securities.
After such a long period holding rates flat, it would be unprecedented for the Fed to begin a new cycle of rising rates. Given this, and given that economic indicators continue to weaken, we can be quite confident that once the FOMC feels it is politically advantageous to do so, it will force down rates even lower. The committee’s claim that it needs “greater confidence” before lowering rates all but guarantees the target rate is headed down soon. Indeed, during today’s FOMC press conference, Fed chairman Jerome Powell stated that the committee did discuss the prospects of lowering the target rate. This is a clear signal that the FOMC is planning to cut the target rate, ad this further suggests that the Fed is seeing the growing economic malaise.
Wall Street Wants a Rate Cut
For some Fed insiders, however, a rate cut isn’t coming soon enough. Last week, former New York Fed president Bill Dudley—who had formerly called for holding the target rate “higher for longer”—announced that he has changed his mind and stated he believes the Fed should cut the target rate now, and “preferably at next week’s policymaking meeting.”
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As a former president of the New York Fed, Dudley is essentially a mouthpiece for Wall Street, so his demand for lower rates suggests mounting discomfort with the state of the economy among investors. This discomfort stems from a slow drip of bad economic news which concerns Wall Street, and which is sure to contribute to calls for aggressive cuts to the target interest rate. […]
– Read More: mises.org
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